Type X
by gotbitfeverhit
Summary: Zombie!AU in which many Harry Potter characters fight the dead. In this world, you kill willingly or you kill in death.


A/N: I have a slight thing for zombie AUs and I also love Harry Potter. So... I hope you like it :3

Prologue:

Their rotten stench drifted into the air, encasing her. She'd grown partly used to it by now, the constant smell of decay rising into the air from the bodies. It seemed to have grown more frequent, as though… as though there were more of them, everywhere, trapping her. Yet there was another part of her that knew that wasn't true – yes, their population was growing, oh, she'd seen it growing, but it was only the idea of it that filled her up gradually. The idea she was becoming so aware of and so accustomed to, that their odour was impossible to ignore. The idea that everything was gone, replaced by those staggering bodies, all dressed in blood.

She drew in a sharp breath as a squelch sounded beneath her, telling herself not to look. Not to get distracted. They were all dead. They were all gone. Just keep going. So she did, sliding the hilt of her knife out from her amateur fashioned belt and into her palm, stepping around the rubble cautiously. Her eyes flickered towards a door to her left, and she turned, hand twisting the knob slowly. Even more of the smell found its way through to her as the door creaked open. She glimpsed two bodies slumped across chairs, a gun in hand for each. They weren't the first she'd seen, and surely not the last.

It was the words on the wall that truly caught her eye. Words she hadn't wanted to see, wanted only to ignore them and continue moving. Yet she couldn't seem to peel her eyes away from the dried up, red letters upon the wall.

_Fever spreading. Nobody's safe. We're all going to die. Give up._

Whoever it was aimed at, she wasn't sure. But it sure sent a quick chill down her spine, and she forced herself to look away. She bit her lip for a moment, just staring at the dusty carpet that once may have been blue. Once may have been the place of congregation for evening meals and seating beside the fire. Once may have-

That was when she stopped herself. She was only passing through. These people had never meant anything to her, and they were never going to. She held the knife out and turned out of the room, continuing through the house. By the state of it, you'd think it had been more than just a month since everything went bad. All of that stale, mouldy food left out on the kitchen side. It would have been useful, had it not been left to rot, since she was beginning to run short on supplies. Nobody seemed to have been round here before her.

Well, considering it was in the middle of nowhere, she wasn't entirely surprised.

Nothing remotely living seemed to be dwelling inside the house, so she stepped out into the back garden – or rather, field – instead, taking in whatever fresh air was left. Still, no sign of life. But a lot of trees. That bothered her a lot – being alone out here was the biggest risk she could imagine during these times. Nobody to keep watch while she slept, no energy if she didn't sleep herself. Looked like she could be sleeping in a dead kid's bed tonight, the doors barricaded and the windows just as ceiled.

From her pocket, she drew out a piece of paper. It'd been through a couple of nature's showers and had been crumpled and stuffed into her pockets countless times. But the words were still as clear as they needed to be.

_Dearest Darling Daughter Hermione!_

_We'll be home before you know it, we promise! And we'll bring you back some kangaroos, eh? We'll send you a postcard as soon as we arrive at the hotel. Missing you already! Love you._

_-Mum & Dad xx_

It wasn't healthy to keep staring at that note. She'd managed to stop herself from waiting around at their house for the postcard, knowing that it just wasn't practical. If they'd even reached Australia, her parents could be running from the virus just as much as she. All that she had to hope was that they were safe, and in the meantime, so was she.

Yet keeping that one strand of evidence she had left, proof that there had been some sort of a life before this, could have been what kept her sane. The last human contact she'd had, even in the form of a quick scrawl, had been the last human encounter she'd had.

There was no time to dwell. She slipped the note into her pocket.

Rain poured against the glass of the windows, hammering against them, begging to get through. Hermione had tried to sleep; she'd tried to sleep for hours and to no avail, because sleep meant nightmares even worse than the ones in which she was living. Fatigue drained her, slipped into her eyelids and still she did not sleep. At least, it did not feel like she had slept for one moment before the banging began.

Really, it had started with splashes and stomps. It was hard to hear through the rain, and at first she thought that maybe she'd _finally _gotten to sleep. Then she assumed it to be the trick of the wind or the rain. Perhaps it was a zombie or two, drawn towards the sound of rain against a rooftop. That thought alone scared Hermione out of any possible sleep. Even if they were all the way down there, and she'd secured herself a barricade (albeit an unsteady one, not to mention the rackety floorboards), who knew what progress they could make as she slept? It wasn't like anyone around here was doing any studying. Did anybody actually know what they were capable of?

Then maybe, just maybe, it was survivors.

She hadn't seen any survivors yet. She hadn't seen anything healthy since the day she saw it on the news, and saw the police cars outside, and saw the screaming families running down the road, and felt herself gathering a bag of things into a backpack and leaving. Nobody had gone the way she'd gone. They'd all gone towards the cities. However, the idea of survivors didn't excite her. Those dead things hadn't stolen her sanity yet, but the same might not be said for the others. If there were others.

There must have been others. Of all the people in her town, in England, in Europe, in the Earth. She couldn't be the only one.

After everything had begun, Hermione had packed some books. Of course she'd packed books. But they were books on diseases and viruses, things her parents kept in their study, because apparently dentists needed to know about those kinds of things. She'd never bothered questioning it before, but it'd turned out handy. None of those infected things were getting near her water, their teeth and their nails were not getting to her skin. If she needed to kill them, their brains were the easiest target. Brains were the area of stimulation. She couldn't be the only one to have figured that out.

"What d'ya reckon?"

Her heart thudded in her chest. It was a voice.


End file.
